D Correlative Conjunctions Practice Key
D Correlative Conjunctions Practice Key
2. Julie eats ______ red meat ______ chicken because she is a vegetarian.
D--We know that Julie does NOT eat red meat or chicken because she is a vegetarian.
“Neither…nor” expresses this negation.
3. The mother told her child that he could have ______ ice cream______ cookies for dessert, but
not both.
C--“Either…or” implies one or the other, but not both.
4. If you would like to receive dual citizenship, ______ your mother ______ your father had to
have been born in another country. For example, Mary’s mom is from Spain, and her Dad is
from the U.S., which means that she has dual citizenship!
C--“Either…or” implies one or the other, but not both.
5. ______ does the school accept international students ______ it offers them a special
scholarship.
B--You know that you need “not only…but also” because you see the helping verb “does” and
the correlative conjunctions precede two clauses.
6. After a long day at work, John is so tired that he can _____ cook dinner _____ exercise.
Instead, he watches TV and picks up some fast food.
D--It is easy to see that John does not cook dinner and he does not exercise.
7. The strict teacher said that students can _____ chew gum _____ use electronics during class.
D--The teacher is strict, so he does NOT allow students to chew gum or use electronics. The
keyword is “strict”.
8. Gary wants to be a triathlete, but there is just one problem. He can _____ ride a bike _____
run very well, but he does not know how to swim.
A OR B--Because this sentence contains the conjunction “but”, we know that the two clauses
should be contrastive. He CAN ride a bike and run, but he CANNOT swim.
9. _____ New York _____ California host popular beaches.
A--When correlating two subjects with “both…and”, the verb is always agrees with a plural
subject. This is not true with the other correlative conjunctions, which follow the rule of the
verb agreeing with the closest subject.
10. _____ students _____ the teacher works very hard to prepare fo r each class; it is a
combined effort!
B--Notice the verb “works” agrees with “teacher”. If it were “both..and”, the verb would
have to be “work”.
Practice 2: Put the words in order to make a sentence with correlative conjunctions.
1. attending/ be/ her/ husband/ neither/ nor/ party/ the/ Sarah / will
7. be/ can/ day/ either/ every/ happy/ to/ or/ we/ unhappy/ choose
9. a/ a/ a/ either/ bad/ good/ familiar/ up/ conjure/ memory/ scent/ may/ memory/ or
A familiar scent may conjure up either a good memory or a bad memory.
OR A familiar scent may conjure up either a bad memory or a good memory.